Jungles of Chult: Wakanga's Journal

Given to the players by the merchant prince Wakanga, after last session--their successful return from down the River Tiryki seeking the Tomb of the Serpent Kings.

The journal is worn and waterlogged ... except the physical copy I gave to the players is not, because I wasn't sure what would happen to the 24-page pocket-journal if I threw it into a puddle.

A sketch of some of the crew at the outset of the expedition, ready and optimistic ...

------

p2.
[a MAP of the route]

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EXPEDITION from NYANZARU
-- Myself & VORN
-- TXALA & SIGHING WIND -- guides
-- NBOMA OXFIST  --
-- ZEBU the WILD    -- fighting-men
-- MLALA TURKA -- fighting woman
-- SIFISO, FUDU, CWATHA, porters

3 CANOES
350 days rations
insect repellant
dozen canteens, pots for boiling water
3 tents

OUR GOAL: the lost city of OROLUNGA & its ORACLE!

p4.
Day 1 -- Sailed from Nyanzaru to Ngana to collect final supplies. Clear skies, no sign of AREMAG. Arrived in good spirits. Shared a feast and a toast to our continued success at the inn. Now to bed--set out early in the morning.

Day 2 -- Word of plesiosaurs off beach--we hired mules to port our canoes & set off due south. Passed through the Palm Orchards of Ishau, bought palm wine to add

p5.
to our supplies for morale. At jungle's edge, sent mules and teamsters back. Claw-runners shadowed camp, but NBOMA & MLALA scattered them with well-shot bows. Into jungle to morrow [sic].

Day 3 -- Weird mists in the morning. Passed 3 women by a broken canoe on the shore as we paddled by. I wanted to help, but ZEBU & TXALA shook their heads--"They are evil spirits." They called out to us most pitifully, but we went on.

p6.
I thought I heard cackling through the mists when we lost sight of them. Am left discomfitted & restless.

Day 5 -- Spotted a behemoth in the morning, eating from the treetops with its long neck. Almost lost a canoe when its tail swept beneath. Then, once camp was made, a mist rolled out of the jungle--blue & thick. TXALA & WIND got everyone

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up the trees to let it pass. Poor FUDU got a lungful, though, & now won't stop telling us that he feels something watching him.

Day 6 -- An easy day. We're making progress upriver

Day 7 -- FUDU is still raving about being watched. Almost started a fight by accusing NBOMA of stealing. MLALA got NBOMA cooled down & ZEBU pulled FUDU aside for some kind of tea concoction. He's calm now

p8.
Day 8 -- Met a group of folks coming downriver--led by HEW HACKINSTONE the dwarf. Warned us about the forest upriver--"place of a thousand demons"--we sent FUDU downriver with them.
Further upriver found a dead man on the bank--one of their expedition? Was badly eaten.
Took right fork in river, but by night it seemed wrong choice--became narrow, difficult to traverse. Forest filled with evil eyes & sounds.

p9.
Day 9 -- LOST. River became a maze. A talking ape with black eyes followed us, offering directions, but only seemed to get us more lost.
The forest is filled with mutterings, and we have lost a full pack of rations--taken by thieving monkeys?

Day 10 -- back on track. Found dead explorer on bank--much decayed already. Took left fork of river--seems good so far.

p10.
Day 11 -- Canoe capsized in the morning by snake-like beast. ZEBU was badly bitten, but spears, &c. were able to drive it off.
ZEBU patched himself up, & we made good time after that. Lost a week of rations.

Day 12  Passed a herd of duck-bills feeding at the riverside around noon. They watched us, but did not flee. Seemed a free herd--very beautiful. Otherwise, made good time.

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Day 13 -- Caught side [sic] of a fortress on a high outcropping of rock--TXALA called it TAMBA ROCK. WIND added that the master is old & eccentric & some kind of magic-user. Considered going to ask for supplies, but decided against. Continued on.

Day 14 -- A good day of travel. Had some trouble getting to the bank to make camp b/c a swarm of piranhas decided to hang around beneath our boats all afternoon.

p12.
Day 15 -- An aarakocra patrol passed over us in the morning, but did not hail us. We continued upriver without further incident.

Day 16 -- No trouble today

Day 17 -- No trouble. Counted rations--175 days remaining. We'll need to resupply somehow, as we must push on.

Day 18 -- Good day. Clear air, river beautiful. Sometimes I enjoy the jungle & its majesty!

p13.
Day 19 -- Lost ZEBU & SIGHING WIND. Were ambushed by lizardmen shortly after midday. Their javelins killed WIND, & then while we got into the boats, ZEBU went back to try to grab WIND'S body. They pulled him down ...
The blood in the water attracted piranhas & we just camped in the boats, run aground as well as we could.

Day 20 -- Damn piranhas stayed with us all night. Damn this place. Damn it all.

p14.
Day 21 -- Killed a giant snake tonight & cooked & ate it. Good thing too. Supplies are getting low--we lost some after the lizardmen attacked

Day 22  We hailed some passing aarakocra in the morning & sought to trade with them for rations. They gave us a week of their fare for a share of spears from us. Uneventful otherwise

Day 23 -- A great Stone tree rises out of the jungle to

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the northwest. It is not OROLUNGA, but we will investigate it nonetheless. Killed another snake in the morning--they are not bad eating at all!

Day 24  Left the canoes ag [sic] tied & hidden at the bank--we now strike inward, into the jungle. May the gods help us.
--Later--made camp--no trouble through the day. STone [sic] tree not far, we'll get there tomorrow I think

p16.
Day 25 -- Got to the tree at midday. The place is filled with giant wasps. CWATHA was stung--I do not think he will make it. The tree is hollow--inside, it seems it was once furnished. There are pieces that make me think another practitioner of the arcane arts once dwelt w/in, but the place is long abandoned.

--Later--CWATHA did not make it. We buried him under a cairn in the jungle.

p17.
Day 26 -- We go SW, seeking a NW tributary to the SOSHENSTAR. I hope to find OROLUNGA at its head.
CLAW-runners attacked us as we made camp, but VORN drove them off. He has always been a stalwart companion--if only he could know how much I appreciate his presence.

Day 27 -- Still SW. It is difficult going through the jungle. Always hacking with the machete, climbing roots, fighting mosquitoes. I can't wait for a bath in Nyanzaru.

p18.
Day 28 -- Found the tributary! A flock of leatherwings descended on us as we came on it, but our arrows and my spells brought some down. We tried to eat them, but there is surprisingly little meat on the creatures. The rest of the day was spent following the tributary NW. No other trouble.

Day 29 -- Disaster. We were attacked by a mouth-dragon as we rested at midday. It came out

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of the jungle & before we could do anything it had snapped jaws around NBOMA & tossed him into the air. It was horrible ...
We fled, & it seemed content to eat him & let us go.
That was not the end of our trouble, though--that evening as we made camp, horrible things like small mangy bears came up out of the jungle. They attacked with their claws, & I saw MLALA'S & TXALA'S

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armor literally deteriorate before my eyes as they struck. But I managed to put them all to sleep with a dwimmer, & we slew the things then. TXALA called them "Zorbos"--foul creatures!

Day 30  Continuing NW along the tributary. I hope we are close to OROLUNGA.

Day 31  Attacked by stirges at midday--I slept them, & we slaughtered

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them. In the afternoon, mists began to roll down from upriver to the NW--not the evil blue mists, but a natural fog ...

Day 32 -- The tributary has led us into an area of hot springs, mists, & volcanic activity. There are geysers & deep pools of hot acidic water of brilliant blue color; & there are fissures of hot rock & mud that open up into the

p22.
We were attacked. Lizardmen came from the mists.
Killed everyone--TXALA, MLALA, SIFISO
VORN is with me. I am injured. Without VORN I would be dead.

They came out of the mists--bright red skin, some were mounted on bird-things.
They hurled javelins, & one was a sorcerer--summoned fire in his hands & cast it forth.

p23.
Poor MLALA burned to death. TXALA was overcome. SIFISO ran, & died w/a javelin in his back. At least, I think he was dead.
VORN saved me. We fled into the jungle--I am lost. Must try to find the river. find my way back.
My leg is wounded--the blood dried--it hurts, but I should not die of blood loss.
I fear I will not make it out.

p24.
LOST
HUNGRY
FOUND FRUIT
CANNOT FIND WATER
ATTACKED BY SNAIL
LEG SWOLLEN--INFECTED
I AM DYING
VORN CANNOT HELP ME
CURSE THIS PLACE
CURSE THIS JUNGLE
CURSED BE THE THOUGHT EVER TO SET FOOT IN THIS HELL

Jungles of Chult Session 4

our intrepid adventurers:
Nugiri (lizardman monk)
Takashi (human magic-user)
Nebin (halfling barbarian)
Qinsela (human druid)
Thrice-Orphaned (goliath fighter)
Vilnus (half-Elf bard, joined late last session)
with River Mist and Flask of Wine (cat-man fighter and thief) as guides
and hired help Olol, Benge, and Adoun


Last time we ended with the characters having just discovered the secret tunnel into the deeper parts of the Tomb of the Serpent Kings, and ready to descend into the depths. They are seeking magical writings for the merchant-prince Wakanga, a magic-user himself, who is willing to pay "thousands of gold" for magical writings dredged up from the tombs ...

Now, just as they were about to descend further into the depths, the party was joined by a pair of new characters (my out-of-town friends were in town for the weekend, so we had them join!): Gona (dwarf monk) and a not-yet-named human druid.

So deeper they went. They descended into tunnel lined with statues. Behind one, the party discovered a secret door that led into an old guard post that was otherwise empty. Continuing through the main corridor, they entered into a large octagonal chamber with a door or open doorway in every wall, and a pool of scummy water at its center.

Looking around, the party decided to tackle things door by door and went to the door just to the left of the entrance; this corridor has a pressure-plate trap in the corridor beyond, the party didn't search for traps at all, and so they set it off--a lightning bolt discharged from the tomb at the end of the twenty foot corridor! The smell of burned flesh filled the corridor, and Vilnus and the nameless druid both dropped dead-dead, while Qinsela was knocked out and almost dead. ("Roll a new character, Josh," I declared, while Vilnus' player also started rolling a new character ... his seventh in the campaign yet ...)

During a short rest, Nugiri the lizardman decided to cook up the dead half-Elf. Nobody protested.

After the rest, the party checked the next door. They found it blocked with rubble and heard something clattering around on the other side, and elected not to clear the rubble.

Through the next door, they found another tomb. They searched the tomb and found a sticky black residue around the seams. Should they try to build a fire around it and cook whatever's inside? That plan was ultimately shut down; instead, they put the bodies of Vilnus and the nameless druid in the corner and then opened the tomb, hoping that if an ooze were inside, it would go for the bodies ... Well, a black ooze was inside, and fortunately for the characters, my reaction dice indicated something good, so the ooze did indeed go for the bodies.

A quick check of the tomb discovered nothing inside, so the characters fled and then stuffed the doorjamb with clothes pilfered from Vilnus' stuff (she had been an actor and had some extra costumes, apparently).

The next door opened onto a long stair down. The party moved on to the next door; they pilfered a silver snake idol and a dozen scrolls that contained writings in unreadable Yuan-Ti script. At this point, the new characters Walter of the Wandering Foot Family (halfling) and Komuzar (half-orc thief) showed up because they were finished being written up. I decreed them companions of Gona and the late nameless druid who had just caught up.

The next door opened onto an unfinished tomb; and the doorway after that opened into a room with three columns of snake-man warrior statues. The secret door behind one in the back corner was duly found, which opened onto a blank corridor, at the end of which the second secret door was quickly located.

Opening that, the party found themselves in a large, dark, underground space. Columns held the ceiling up; a chain descended from the center of the ceiling and then led off into the darkness just beyond their light spell, though the chain was clearly moving and scraping along the floor ...

Stepping into the room, the characters immediately spotted a large reptilian creature with eight legs on the far side of the room. It approached; as it stared at them with eldritch green eyes, Nebin the halfling felt himself rooting into the ground as if becoming part of the stone himself. The party quickly intuited that this was a basilisk and then charged to attack!

The combat didn't last long. The basilisk got a couple good hits in, but against eight 5e characters, it just didn't really have a chance. After it was dead, Nugiri did his thing and carved it up and cooked up some basilisk steaks, and also popped its eyes out and saved them in a jar.

From here, the party went "north" (it was north in my game, but not in Skerples' descriptions) and found a door of intertwining serpents that they couldn't unlock, a stair down to the west, and other doors to the east. Through the east door they went, and were confronted with an undead horror--a snake-man, anciently embalmed, eyes of red pinpoints in empty sockets, who greeted them in a hissing language none of them understood.

Nugiri responded in Draconic, saying, "Bitch, please," which is not the kind of thing I personally would say to a lich. The lich responded also in Draconic, "What did you say to me?" and then Nugiri cleaned up his act. He explained that they were just there looking around ... the lich, one Xiximanter, took Nugiri to be the owner of the entourage of humanoid slaves, and decided to be hospitable. He remembered the forms of entertainment, if not the details, and went to a pitcher and some goblets and "poured" nothing from the ewer into the goblets and handed the empty vessels around (Walter and another character poured actual wine out for themselves from their possessions).

Xiximanter explained that he was on the verge of a breakthrough in his experiments attempting to brew a potion of immortality. He assumed the empire of the Yuan-Ti was still alive and well above, though he hadn't seen anyone for quite some time. The players wisely avoided revealing the truth ... Xiximanter asked Nugiri if he could use any of the lizardman's "slaves" as fodder for his experiments, but Nugiri politely declined.

Bored now of the conversation, Xiximanter went into the room next door and pulled out of a pit a goblin all infected with fungus. He dragged the protesting thing into another room and attached it to a chair like the one from the Skekzis' castle in The Dark Crystal and proceeded to drain the essence from the goblin into a little vial, and then to use that in whatever experiment he was engaged in.

The party left, uncomfortable.

Heading back through the basilisk room, they encountered a skeleton jelly and were unable to destroy it. Takashi slowed it by blasting it with ray of frost, and the party escaped back to the octagonal room with the pool. There, they discovered that the ooze had moved--clothing no longer stuffed any of the doorjambs ... finding the ooze in another room, they stuffed its doorjamb with clothes, and then turned to explored down the stairs they had earlier ignored.

At the bottom of the stair, they found another large octagonal room, but this one had walls covered with the shields of all the Batiri, human tribesman, and other Yuan-Ti tribes that had been defeated by the empire back in the day, layering the walls like scales. In the center of the room was a huge stone figure of a night with a cobra's head that advanced to attack as soon as the door was opened. The players noped! and slammed the door and went back up the stairs.

Going back through the basilisk chamber and north, the party descended the stair there and found the cylinder-door. Gona and Komuzar went through counter-clockwise first and felt the pangs of spears stabbing their sides. Returning back, Komuzar then went in alone and went clockwise, and ultimately reported back the passage on the other side of the rotating cylinder.

These passages led into the fungus-goblin warrens, which skeezed out the characters--Walter in particular was nauseated by a room that was filled with garbage and pulsating slime-molds, and lost the wine that he had recently imbibed all over his own feet.

A single goblin was found in the next room, chewing on a bat; the characters dispatched it with a number of missile attacks. Chattering goblins could be heard in the room beyond that; Takashi hit on a good plan regarding them. He approached the doorway alone and poured out a sack of gold coins on the floor before him. As the dozen-plus goblins gathered around to collect the coins, Takashi let loose with a burning hands spell and killed most of them.

The others failed their morale; the characters gave chase up a stair and chased the goblins up into the sunlight, while they themselves found another secret door into the basilisk-room from the other side.

Continuing their exploration, the party went through the "south" end of the basilisk room, and then down a stair to the southwest. They ultimately entered into a room with a pit-trap and while Nebin made hi save to avoid it, Thrice Orphaned tumbled in, but took negligible damage. On the other side of the pit was a door; through that door was a chamber with a pit along the east wall, in the center of which was an eternally burning flame surrounded by charred bones, runny gold, and gems.

Takashi mage-handed the gems out of the pit; through the next door, the party found more doors, one of which was iron. At this point I read that the key to that door was embedded in the basilisk's neck, and I adjudicated that Nugiri had found it while carving up the basilisk for eating. Opening the door with the key, the party found a crap-ton of loot, more weird writings, and a stair down to gods-know-what even deeper beneath the tombs ...

The party elected to take the treasure and go--they still had a jungle to make their way back through.

Out of the dungeon without monsters bothering them, the party found their porter and two slingers still next to the boat in their paltry camp. Gathering everything up, they headed north through the jungle seeking the River Tiryki; from there they would boat back down to civilization. On the first day, they spotted some flying lizards, but the creatures avoided them; that night, a mysterious man arrived in camp. When they offered him food, he offered his name, Wtanda, and suggested that in return for their hospitality, he would lead them through the jungle to the river. They agreed; the next day passed without incident as they followed Wtanda. At the river, he took his leave of the party.

They then set out on the river with their boats, because travel downriver on boats is much faster than hiking up through the jungle; the next day they passed a party of other explorers, emaciated and calling for help from the shore, but the party passed them by, afraid of delays and cannibal-attacks.

And they arrived back in Port Nyanzaru without any further issue!

Wakanga was glad to buy the strange writings from the party for a significant sum; they were not the magical writings he sought, but were still something. Moreover, he was interested in their account Xiximanter, and expressed the possibility of funding an expedition to give slaves to Xiximanter in trade for his potions or knowledge or both ... we'll see what the players think next session; especially seeing that Wakanga also gave the party the journal of another expedition that he had in his possession, which details a failed expedition up the Soshenstar River ...

Takashi paid off his debt to the merchant prince Jobal; Nebin probably will do the same with Jessamine, but his player wasn't actually present for this session to make such a call.

Komuzar and Nugiri both went carousing after that, and by the fate of the dice, each failed their save and then rolled the result "acquired a slave". Komuzar bought Talis, a scribe from across the northern ocean; meanwhile, Nugiri bought Tzana, an old man, but surprisingly strong and spry for his old age.

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Remembrance for the Dead
Vilnus (half-Elf bard 1), a nameless druid 1, Nsi Losi (human fighting-man 1), Biango (NPC porter), Iedos (tiefling paladin 1), Tehran Atzi (human cleric of Ubtao 1), Sound of Distant Rain (catman rogue 1), Chiratidzo (human druid 1)

Jungles of Chult Session 3

our intrepid adventurers:
Nugiri (lizardman monk)
Takashi (human magic-user)
Nebin (halfling barbarian)
Qinsela (human druid)
Iedos (tiefling paladin)
Nsi Losi (human fighting-man)
Thrice-Orphaned (goliath fighter)
with River Mist and Flask of Wine (cat-man fighter and thief) as guides
and hired slingers Olol and Benge
and hired porters Adoun and Biango


The last session ended with half the party that had originally set out dead, and the other half plus newcomer Qinsela, safely returned to Port Nyanzaru a little bit richer. Nebin and Takashi immediately blew their gains on booze and possibly hookers, and ended up in debt to merchant princes Jessamine (Nebin, for 100 gold) and Jobal (Takashi, for 400 gold). Takashi was also beaten and robbed while drunk, and had to begin this session without clothes and with a few hit points fewer.

Bumming around town for a couple days, the adventurers were able to gather a few rumors:

Firstly, while carousing, Nebin and Takashi learned of the new tavern-brothel the House of Flowers and Fruit, wherein beautiful men and women with brightly colored skin and floral petals rather than hair work as courtesans. These creatures, who call themselves the Flowers of Puljra, only appeared out of the jungle recently. Nobody has ever seen anything quite like them--they seem dryad-like, and there is a weird tree now growing in the courtyard of the House with weird fruits that almost look like fetal-position-men ...

Secondly, within the last few weeks, giant saltwater crocodiles have begun to attack the supply-ships that shuttle supplies to and from Fort Beluarian to the north east. The commander of the Fort, one Liara Portyr, has publicly offered a bounty of 100 gold for the head of each such crocodile brought to her, and a lesser bounty of 10 gold for any regularly-sized crocodile. Given their encounters with crocodiles last session, the players quickly turned their noses up at this offer--"Needs to be a lot higher bounty for us to do that!"

Thirdly, they heard of a priestess of Torm seeking passage down the Soshenstar River to Camp Vengeance, forward outpost of the Order of the Gauntlet (a militant clerical order bent on eradicating the undead menace in the jungles ... and not doing a very good job of it). When the party approached this Undril Silvertusks, half-orc priestess, they learned that she had a packet of letters and orders for Commander Niles of Camp Vengeance, but that she didn't have any money to pay for an escort--she was looking to add her skills to any expedition headed down the Soshenstar. Hearing this lack of coin, the party quickly and politely said, "Maybe next time, good luck!" and elected to seek money elsewhere.

Lastly, the adventurers were approached by a messenger from merchant-prince Wakanga (cue Black Panther jokes at the table), the only magic-user from among that illustrious number. The messenger indicated that his master would like an audience with the adventurers who traveled up the Tiryki River and returned, as he had a business offer regarding a site further up that river. Seeking him out, the party learned from him that he had heard from another expedition of a tomb dug out in the hills southeast of the swamp with the Sailback Shrine--a tomb of the Yuan-Ti, the serpent men that once filled the jungles of Chult, but which now linger only in deep places and old stories. This tomb, presumably of the Serpent-Kings, Wakanga believes to contain magical artefacts from of old, and he would dearly love to get his hands on such--if the adventurers were willing to delve into its depths and return especially with books of spells or magical manuals, Wakanga would be more than grateful and shower them with thousands of gold.

So the party elected to outfit themselves for a second expedition up the River Tiryki. I reminded them that they could hire NPC mercenaries and porters, just like our regular B/X games, and they hired two slingers and two porters, as well as retaining the services of River Mist and Flask of Wine, Tabaxi jungle-guides. They also bought a second river boat, these hirings and purchasings leaving them broke again ... and set out southeast along the river's length.

And on the first day out from Nyanzaru, rowing south for the Tiryki's estuary, someone spotted dark shapes moving under the water toward their boats. Fearing crocodiles, they began rowing furiously for shore--the boat with Thrice-Orphaned the goliath made the beach, but the second boat was still on the water when snake-like heads emerged from the water, grinning with glinting teeth. Takashi was in the second boat; he cast a sleep spell at the monsters ... and because sleep affects lowest hit point creatures first, he only managed to lay the rest of his boat under an enchanted slumber. The snake-necked water monsters took advantage of their suddenly sleeping prey and grabbed (rolling randomly) Biango the porter and Iedos the paladin into the water and away to be eaten elsewhere at their leisure.

An auspicious start for the expedition! After that, we settled into the routine of overland travel, mostly rolling no encounters for the day. Because River Mist and Flask of Wine are familiar with the Tiryki, I allowed that they don't have to make navigation rolls along its length.

Day 4 -- evening -- A party of four humans approaches the camp and asks to share shelter. They are led by Abiol. He claims that he and his comrades were out hunting, but found no quarry. When he hears the party are making for the tombs of the serpent-men, he tells them that the tombs are cursed. Come morning, Abiol and his company continue northwest for Nyanzaru while the party continues south.

Day 6 -- morning -- The party is ambushed by a large number of lizardmen. But Nugiri parlays; he learns that these are the Hsaathi Tribe, distantly related to the Hsa Hsi lizardmen near Nyanzaru (and with a random roll, Nugiri is of the Hsa Hsi himself). The leader of this group is Isaath, and he says to Nugiri, "Give us your tail, and we will give you ours. What tribute do you offer to pass through our territory?"
"I will cook for you," Nugiri offers, and the lizardmen find it acceptable when Nugiri cooks up two weeks of rations for them as a feast. Then Isaath gives Nugiri a javelin as a token of friendship, and he and his company allow the party to continue unmolested.

Day 7 -- night -- During the watch of Takashi and Nugiri, the pair notice a party of about a dozen humans attempting to sneak up on their camp. They quietly begin to awaken their comrades, starting with Nebin and Thrice-Orphaned (I think?). In the midst of shuffling around, they alert their would-be ambushers that they're awake and a battle ensues as the humans rush into the camp whooping and hollering and brandishing javelins.
It's a stiff fight, but only because the jungle-dwellers roll a couple critical hits. Otherwise they're not well enough armed to carry the battle, and so the last three left standing after a couple rounds surrender. Nebin and Qinsela interrogate the survivors, who are clearly cannibals; one is named Angim, and all of the jungle-men have teeth filed to points, and an inverted blue triangle tattooed on their foreheads. This is the mark of Ras Nsi, whom they serve, Angim explains. "Will you let us go now? You mighty warriors have defeated us, and we will trouble you no more."

But the party wasn't buying it, and they put their attackers to death. Among the bodies they find a scrollcase with a scroll of grease inside, and also a xalam, a kind of lute.

Day 8 -- mid-day -- Sprained ankle rolled on my non-monster encounter chart. Cured with a cure light spell, no trouble after that.

Day 9 -- morning -- River Mist, who is guiding the party through the jungle, reports back that she has spied an ambush of grungs ahead. "They are good to eat if well-cooked," she adds at the end, and Nugiri and Takashi both get a hungry gleam in their eyes.
The party wishes to counter-ambush the frog-men, and so they send Thrice-Orphaned and Nebin ahead as bait while the rest sneak around to flank the grungs. This plan works out perfectly, and six of the seven grung are quickly killed while the last is subdued and tied up. The party never learn his name; what they do get out of him is that he knows where "treasure" is, and he will lead them there, and says, "Then you will release me, because we will be friends, because I have shown you treasure."
"Lead on," the party responds, and so he leads them down the river a ways to the submerged altar and the idol of the hermaphroditic god/dess Olokuna that the party found in the river last expedition.
The grung indicates the altar; the party searches it and finds only a collection of arrow- and spear-heads. Much disappointed, they kill their prisoner; Nugiri hangs the corpse on the erect stone phallus of the idol, much to the disgust of Nsi Losi, who is of Good alignment.

The party then chooses to cross the river at this point--on the other bank they will head due south through the jungle and ultimately end up to the southeast of the Sailback Shrine and swamp, which is where they want to be.
Alas! in crossing the river, they manage to disturb a giant snapping turtle that was resting like a giant rock in the shallows. Fortunately, only the last two of the party disturbed it; unfortunately, that included Nsi Losi, the second character of the player who had already lost Iedos.
Rolling randomly, the turtle attacked Nugiri first, but its snapping jaws closed on air as the lizardman monk nimbly dodged away and fled to the river bank. Next, the turtle won initiative, and as Nsi Losi was the only character nearby, it snapped at him, and Nsi Losi collapsed in the water in a bleeding heap that began to dead-man's float downriver ...

The party shot missile weapons at the turtle, only serving to enrage it so that it continued out of the river toward them on the bank ... until Qinsela remembered that he can cast charm animal. So he cast it, and calmed the turtle and told it to just go back to resting, while the party fled up the bank and continued into the jungle (and while a new character was being rolled up ...)

Day 10 -- evening -- The half-Elf Vilnus arrives in camp, following a group of shiny beetles. (She?) joins the party, as the jungle is not a safe place, and perhaps they can help her in her quest to collect the myriad beetles of the jungle ...

Day 11 -- mid-day -- A roll of "no progress" on my non-monster encounter chart. At this point, I also required the party to roll for navigation to avoid getting lost, as they're moving through actual jungle rather than following the path of the river. They get back on track the following day.

Day 13 -- morning -- Just after the party breaks camp, the jungle is suddenly shaken with sound like of thunder, with the crashing of trees, and with the ground itself tremoring. The party quickly scatters--"It sounds like something's coming that you don't want to be in the way of!" Sure enough, a huge beast with an incredibly long snake-neck, elephantine legs and body, and a long whip-like tail crashes past, heading toward the river. The party wonders at its passing, and then continue on their way.

Day 14 -- mid-day -- River Mist admits that she's lost; fortunately, Nugiri has been paying attention to where they are, and thinks that they're in the general vicinity of the ridgeline with the tomb, their goal. After a fair amount of time exploring, the party is able to discover a worked entrance cut into the northwest face of the ridgeline. A stone slap used to cover the entrance, but a tree growing by the door ultimately cracked the stone and sent it tumbling away sometime in the past, allowing the cave inside to issue foetid airs.

Leaving their two slingers, their porter, and their two boats concealed in a copse of trees, the party entered the Tomb of the Serpent-Kings. (I've scattered a number of dungeons throughout the wilderness of Chult, including Skerples' tutorial dungeon from the Coins and Scrolls blog. I've been curious about it for a long time; Chult with its Yuan-Ti seemed like a perfect place to drop it in. For those of you playing--don't cheat! But even if you do, I'll probably have changed things anyway ...)

Entering the musty tunnel, the party found themselves in a corridor with four branches and one large door at the end. Each of the branches ended in a small chamber with a clay sarcophagus in the shape of a serpent-man in repose. Breaking open the first of these, the goliath Thrice-Orphaned took some damage from breathing in a gas that escaped from within. Otherwise, the party discovered a skeleton of mixed human- and serpent-bones, as well as a gold amulet formed like a serpent twisting back on itself.

Each of the other three chambers held similar sarcophagi; they dealt with the others by standing well back when they broke the seals, allowing the gas to escape without anyone being close enough to breathe it in. All in all, they found six golden amulets within the sarcophagi, as well as a silver snake-ring inside one of them.

Turning their attention to the door, the party found a huge door barred on their side with a heavy bar of stone on iron hooks set into the door. They quickly identified it as a trap, that when the stone was lifted, the hooks would rise, and a hammer would fall from the ceiling to strike anyone at the door in the back ("We need to lure the big monster inside here and set off the trap," one of them immediately quipped). To prevent the hooks rising, they tied them off with ropes set into the floor with iron spikes, and then as a further safety measure they lifted the bar up from either side, rather than from in front of the door. The ropes held and the hammer didn't fall; and opening the doors, the party found a larger room with three more sarcophagi and another chamber offset and containing the horrid statue of some grotesque serpent-man god.

These sarcophagi they approached the same way as before--but lo! they contained restless skeletons rather than poison gas! Skeletons that were quickly quashed by the party's attacks. At this point it was getting late, and one of our members had already fallen asleep briefly at the table, so we decided to wrap it up for the night with their discovery of a once-secret tunnel that was now revealed beneath the grotesque idol by the slow action of water over the ages.

What secrets does the tomb hold within its depths? Find out in approximately three weeks, the next time I'll be able to run Tomb of Annihilation ...

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Remembrance for the Dead
Nsi Losi (human fighting-man 1), Biango (NPC porter), Iedos (tiefling paladin 1), Tehran Atzi (human cleric of Ubtao 1), Sound of Distant Rain (cat-man rogue 1), Chiratidzo (human druid 1)

Jungles of Chult: River Mist and Flask of Wine

Using the "Into the Unknown" ruleset from +Anders H, which is a Basic hack of 5e D&D, for running WotC's Tomb of Annihilation.

Of course, I screwed up the above "boxed text" because the published book of ToA contradicts itself. Jobal is described on the one hand as giving out information including the whereabouts of River Mist and Flask of Wine; while their descriptions (later on) contradict that information flatly. Alas, because Jobal was the first of these characters that the players interacted with (and I was several beers in and blithely trusted the book), I had Jobal citing River Mist and Flask of Wine as employees of his. Fortunately, this "situation" resolved itself somewhat when the players did something else before returning to Jobal for a guide, so by then Jobal and the Tabaxi could have had a "break" and terminated their relationship. And my players elected to hire the twain specifically because Jobal said they were untrustworthy ...

Anyway, I'm writing these NPCs up because the "stock" 5e NPCs are bags of enormous hps but worthless skills (9 hit dice, but +2 to hit, i.e. the same as a 1 hit die first level character? why don't bonuses scale with hit dice??). I'd rather they have a fair chance of dying, but also of being useful--and I'm going to give them to the players as "characters" for them to run for the duration of the expedition, to lessen my load (and if their player characters die, maybe they take over as the guides).

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River Mist
STR 11
INT 7
WIS 12
DEX 16
CON 14
CHA 12

Fighter (Deadeye) 4
hp 26
AC 15 (2 studded leather, 3 dex)
proficiency +2
equipment: studded leather, longbow, handaxe, shortsword, backpack

referee fiat abilities: herbalist -- has a nose for useful/valuable flora in the jungle (subject to further fiat for what precisely that means); track -- double proficiency bonus for tracking creatures through a wilderness

River Mist is a tabaxi female who wears an eyepatch over her right eye. She is evasive about the cause of her missing eye, sometimes alluding to a long-ago accident. River and her brother, Flask of Wine, have been acting as jungle guides for those leaving Port Nyanzaru and its environs for an expedition into the jungle for several years. Mostly, they act as guides for those wishing to hunt or capture large jungle beasts like shield-heads or dagger-backs, but they have also led several expeditions up the River Tiryki all the way to its source in Ataaz Ahiya, the Weeping Gorge.

River (as you might call her for short) is the face of the twain, the one actually willing to converse with strangers and to put herself out there. Nevertheless, she is at home in the wilderness, and is happy to be out among the trees, seeing and smelling new things, and hunting strange new creatures.

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Flask of Wine
STR 10
INT 13
WIS 12
DEX 16
CON 9
CHA 8

Rogue (Thief) 3
hp 8
AC 15 (2 studded leather, 3 dex)
proficiency +2
equipment: studded leather, shortbow, handaxe, machete, backpack, deck of cards

referee fiat abilities: gambling -- double prof for games of chance; trackless step -- double prof for being stealthy in forest

Flask of Wine is a tabaxi male, brother of River Mist. The twain have acted as guides in the jungles of Chult for several years, and feel they have a general grasp of the dangers in the jungles.

Flask (as he is known for short) is a laconic creature who rarely utters more than a sentence at a time, if he speaks. He isn't shy, per se, and is more than glad to join in a bout of drinking and carousing, going mug-for-mug of palm wine with any others--though palm wine doesn't make him any more lugubrious, and perhaps rather quieter--he just doesn't offer much verbally. Perhaps he heard the old Viking advice that those who say nothing, though they know nothing, may seem to be wise; while those who say much, though they know much, will certainly seem foolish.

Flask of Wine had taken a liking to Sound of Distant Rain to play card games with him, gambling small amounts as they traveled. Alas, their games were cut short by the death of Sound in the Sailback Shrine, killed by a mysterious psychic emanation from the creepy monkeys they battled in the catacombs. On return to Nyzanzaru, he took much of the wages paid him by the players and paid with them for a small sacrifice to the Cat Lord for the spirit of dead Sound ...

Jungles of Chult Session 1

I started a new in-person game of 5e D&D with my friends this last Saturday, 13 January, in which I will run WotC's Tomb of Annihilation (2017) approximately every other Saturday, while my friend continues running his dungeon on the "off" weekends. So why not title this post "Tomb of Annihilation"? Because I decided to de-emphasize the Tomb's centrality to the game, and focus rather on the jungle hexcrawl--because that part of the book hooked my interest, while not so much the eponymous tomb.

Because there are only three players, I allowed each to create two characters, and further requested that half the characters be rolled according to +Anders H's "Into the Unknown" a B/X hack of 5e so that we can help playtest the rules (and also because I'm probably just going to run the game like B/X anyway, so it's nice to have a ruleset that backs me up on it). I'd already informed everyone that I'd be changing the XP tables, so they were down with "Into the Unknown" characters too ...


so, our intrepid adventurers:
Sound of Distant Rain (cat-man rogue)
Terahn Atzi (human priest)
Nigiri (lizardman monk)
Takashi Akaga (human magic-user and gourmand)
Nebin (halfling barbarian)
Chiratidzo (human druid)


We started in Port Nyzanzaru somewhat "fresh off the boat" (Chira and Terahn are both Chultan natives, but not well-traveled), and I dropped an info dump on everyone to introduce the game: Chult is a land where death is permanent, regardless of magic--not even a wish spell can revive a slain character within the bounds of Chult. This has been the case for several generations now, and those who were rich enough and unwilling to live in a land where death was permanent left for other shores when the "death curse" first fell upon the land, but people have been living their lives normally since. No one knows whence this curse has come, but it has lain over the land for some time. (those who are familiar with the adventure will note that I significantly altered the facts here, to de-emphasize the curse as a worldwide "time bomb" and allow more emphasis on hexcrawling)

I also outlined the history of Chult and the war between the city of Mezro and the Eshowe, the rise of Ras Nsi as a lord of undead, and the fact that a dragon turtle called Aremag extorts treasure from ships passing in and out of the Bay of Chult.

And so what were our characters interested in doing? They looked over the hex map I gave them, wondering at all the empty hexes they could explore--but their chief priority was, as players of D&D, to secure some quick money before committing to anything major.

Using his "highborn" background, Terahn secured an audience with one of the local merchant-lords, one Jessamine, who was rumored to be interested in buying certain flora from the jungle. Jessamine appeared in the courtyard of her villa silently in the midst of the characters, and then proceeded to answer their questions about valuable flora by pointing out that senda berries and wildroot are both particularly valuable to her, and there are a few other rare plants that she would pay for.

The party was glad to know this ... hearing that another merchant-lord, one Jobal, was an outfitter maintaining a stable of jungle guides, they next sought him out and managed to secure an audience with him as well. His villa was filled with trophies of the animals he had hunted and killed, and he immediately hit it off with Chira, not only because Chira was guzzling the proffered palm wine, but also because Chira is a druid and a man of the wilderness. After a few stories about the animals killed (including a "mouth dragon"), Jobal turned to business and counted off a number of guides whose services he could recommend (including a tabaxi pair he is not supposed to recommend--typo number one!--I corrected it later)--but when the party revealed that they did not have the requisite funds for 5 gp/day, 30 day upfront payment (150 gp), the wine stopped flowing. "Come back when you have some coin!" Jobal told them as he sent them out (though not unkindly).

A mouth-dragon pursuing a shield-head

Now especially in need of funds, the party asked around for quick money and heard that the Flaming Fist regularly supplies Fort Beluarian, a Flaming Fist encampment on the peninsula northwest of Nyanzaru. Rowed galleys carry the supplies across the Bay of Chult to the Fort, and then carry ingots from the mines above the Fort back to Nyanzaru, and the galleys require both rowers and guards/porters out and back. Odo, quartermaster of the Flaming Fist in Nyanzaru, was approached by Sound of Distant Rain, and offered him and his associates 3 gp/day to act as guards and porters on the next galley.

The galley set out the next dawn; because it wasn't leaving/entering the Bay, it would not be subject to the extortions of Aremag. The first leg of the trip was a short jaunt to a camp on a peninsula halfway between Nyanzaru and the beachhead below Beluarian; on the second day the galley arrived at the beachhead and the supplies were offloaded from the ship; on the third day, the supplies were ported up a path to the Fort itself. The fourth day was slated as a day of rest, and then the last three days of the trip would mirror the first three.

The only encounter seen by the characters on the way out was a flock of scintillating snakes flying through the trees near the beach on the first day.

At Fort Beluarian, after all the porting was done, the characters could rest; Sound elected to gamble with the soldiers of the Flaming Fist (against regulations, but under the noses of their superiors) and won 20 gp after staking a mere 10 gp to start. Nigiri, meanwhile (the lizardman) went forth from the fort and hunted down some local iguanas, herbs, etc., and in-fort cooked up a mouthwatering meal that gathered a number of Flaming Fist soldiers to ask for a portion (they had to jockey with Takasha, the gourmand magic-user who follows Nigiri specifically for his lizardman-cooking).

Grilled iguanas ... yum!

The Flaming Fist soldiers then laid out chests of iron and copper ingots stamped with the seal of the Fist, all of which were ported back down to the beachhead and loaded onto the ship; and then the galley set out back for Nyanzaru the next dawn.

On the first day to the halfway peninsula, the ship was buzzed by a flock of pteranodons which ultimately left the galley alone; then later in the day, a band of aarakocra (bird-men) appeared over the galley. These aarakocra were invited down by the characters, and relayed to the party that an injured comrade of theirs was on a beach nearby, having been wounded in a scuffle with lizardmen. The characters arranged for the aarakocra to carry their companion to the ship, there to be healed by a use of cure light wounds; and when this aarakocra was healed by Terahn, she told the players that her name was Skir of the Kaaraa Eyrie, and she presented Terahn with her javelin and one of her pinion feathers as tokens of friendship.

Then, on the third day, early in the morning on the beach, the characters were awakened by one of the ship's rowers, one Osuware. "Quickly!" he whispered, pointing to the treeline and to a flock of iridescent snakes basking in the morning sun in the trees. "Let us take the serpents, and we can sell them back in Nyanzaru!" Most of the party followed; they watched Osuware stuff a serpent into a sack, and then Takasha cast sleep over the rest of the nine snakes; he then demanded that he receive two of the snakes for Nigiri to cook up for him, while the other eight can be sold, and the party reluctantly agreed.

So, back in town, Osuware guided the party to the villa of Ifan Tal'Roa, another merchant lord. This Ifan is a great seller of animals, beasts, etc. both as beasts of burden and as creatures bound for gladiatorial games, and he was glad to receive a party attempting to sell him flying snakes. He first offered 25 gp per snake, which Osuware was over-eager to take, and so Sound talked Ifan up to 30 gp per snake. Osuware was glad for it, and, being bad at math, agreed to take 40 gp while the party split the other 200. Ifan advised the party to look out for other beasts in the jungles that he would be glad to buy.

The party then returned to Jobal to get his take on jungle guides; and despite his excessive friendliness now that they were in some money, and despite his protestations not to seek out his former employees River Mist and Flask of Wine, a couple of tabaxi (cat-man) guides who had just broken with him, the party of course, sought out River and Flask. These two agreed to guide the party for a lesser sum of 4 gp/day, with no upfront payment (but they would be glad for a cut of treasure after the fact!). Moreover, they are familiar with the jungle around the River Tiryki, and with two landmarks, one Firefinger (a spire with a ptera-folk tribe) and the other Dungrunglung (a shrine-city of grung frog-men).

River Mist has the eyepatch; her brother is Flask of Wine

The party then needed to actually plan their first expedition into the jungles, and ultimately decided to abandon their first plan to seek Camp Righteous and Camp Vengeance on the River Soshenstar, and to follow their guides up the Tiryki River. They bought a rowboat (50 gp) and several weeks of rations, but were confident in their own ability to forage in the jungle for food (and they agreed beforehand to boil their water). Round trip, this expedition is expected to last something like 70 days, most of it the trip there and back, but with a week at the head of the river for in-depth exploration.

We got four days into this seventy day expedition before it was 1:20 am and we needed to break for the night. Each hex on the map is 10 miles across; the travel rules in Tomb of Annihilation indicate that a party can travel 10 miles in one day, but I find that completely ridiculous for jungle travel; being generous, I cut that in half to 5 miles per day (I would have cut it further, following accounts I've read of jungle travel, but I still want this to be a game ...). I was many beers in at this point, and so didn't roll for the party getting lost, but I did roll all of the encounters for each day--and as a further modification to the rules, I'm going to devise another table of my own for non-creature "encounters" to roll on once each day, following other tables I've written for other hexcrawls I've run.

Nothing happened on the first day ... on the second day, the party was ambushed by a party of Batiri (jungle-goblins) as they traveled along the banks of the Tiryki. The goblins charged from the bush, but were repulsed by a concerted effort, and when the "boss" was slain, the Batiri rolled poorly on morale, panicked, and ran back into the jungle. From the corpse of the "boss", the party took up a painted mask they think could be worth something back in town, and then they continued on their way south.

On the third day, the party came across a shield-head (or "ytepka" or "three-horns") grazing alone in a meadow not far from the banks of the river. River and Flask were enamored of it, trying to get the party to attack and subdue it so that they could lead it back to town to sell to Ifan Tal'Roa--then they could sell the beast to him for a tidy profit (and only a few days out!) and then restart their expedition with even higher funds. Alas, the party balked at attacking such a large creature, and merely walked around it. Later that day, they provoked a troop of baboons, which attacked them, but were easily driven off with another poor morale roll for the creatures ...

One ornate species of shield-head

And on the fourth day, the party encountered a pair of giant spiders, easily dispatched without even the need for a morale roll--and this is where we quit for the night, as it was nigh 2 am and we were semi-incoherent.

So like I said, these encounters need to be spiced up with some non-monster "wilderness encounters" that will vary things beyond mere roleplaying/combat encounters (also, need some roleplaying encounters anyway). The book recommends rolling three times per day; I was thinking of rolling twice on the book's encounter table, and once on my own table each day. Ultimately, this would alter the checks from 3 encounter checks per 10 miles to 4 monster encounter checks and 2 non-monster encounter checks per 10 miles, so I don't feel like it's too much.


The next Chult game will probably be in about two weeks; I'll be sprucing up the hexmap in the meantime and probably sharing ideas and additions here--I admit, I just can't run an adventure/module without tinkering with a fair amount.